The hunter captured, working title
by Beekiller-Johanna from Finland
Summary: A brief opening to a fic I have planned to write, written as my course assignment for Creative Writing course. Might be safe to call it a draft for now, because I can't know how much I will change when I actually write the story. May include rotting corpses mooning in hospital gowns and stuff like that. (Ewww...) A survivor catches a hunter and she considers taming it.


Author Note: This was written as a part of my studies (Creative Writing course) so nobody needs to worry about me 'abandoning' writing Godzilla's bride. The story is still in the works and progresses slowly, a few lines every now and then. It just didn't fit the course assignments given themes. I just can't remember what the original theme options were, because I'm uploading this so late, and I haven't found the on-paper original with my teacher's comments.

This is supposed to be the opening to a Left 4 Dead fanfic I have planned to write one day. :)

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So, the world ended. And it all happened because of a virus. The virus causes the sick people to lose their minds and attack other people. Some of the sick get huge tumors or mutate hideously, sometimes into beast-like forms… Hmm, going crazy, attacking people and in the process spreading the virus… That kinda sounds like rabies. Some of the survivors I've met have called it a zombie virus but I don't know about that. Aren't zombies supposed to be dead? For several reasons I'm not sure if the infected ones actually die. They don't smell like death, the way any of the actually dead corpses I've come across did, they just smell like sickness. They vocalize, so they must breathe in order to produce sound. They bleed when shot so their hearts must function. I don't want to know what it is but sometimes they vomit some lumpy red and grey stuff, and once I saw one taking a crap just like anything living does, so I guess that means their digestive tracts work. Though the guy I saw pooped out the bones of what used to be a whole foot, so maybe their insides have adapted to eating a bit larger hunks of meat than before. I left a graffiti message about it to notify other survivors, but somehow I suspect no-one is going to believe it.

In the early days of the infection, the way the government had downplayed the severity of the epidemic and tried to present "the green flu" as a harmless new influenza strain had aroused the attention of all sorts of conspiracy theorists, who found the mellow attitude suspicious when compared to the panic caused by the bird flu, the swine flu and SARS. Rumors quickly spread that the government had engineered the virus for bio-warfare, and who knows, maybe the rumors were true. Not that big of a surprise, knowing how many documented cover ups there has been in the past over the government's bio-warfare experiments.

It really is quite funny, in a weird, morbid way. I never expected it to coincide with one of the endless prophecies of Armageddon. Though it certainly did not go like all those religious nut jobs said it would. No trumpets announcing it, no fire balls from the heavens, no demons rounding up people to be either branded with the mark of the devil or to be executed for choosing god's side. And yet, here I am, in the hallway of an abandoned hospital in a post-apocalyptic world. I stand in the doorway of room I was planning to raid for supplies, staring at the bare arse of a dead man in a hospital gown. The disgusting sight of decaying gray flesh had been the first thing to greet me when I had forced open the door.

I finally enter the room, wishing he had died some place other that right on top of the medicine cabinet. I find a scalpel buried in the man's neck and pull it out. Hard to say why he was killed, because he was infected, or because the user of the scalpel was infected? I briefly consider taking the scalpel with me but I decide that the katana I looted earlier from some dead guy is plenty enough for my needs of cutting stuff. I ponder the situation as I put away the scalpel and push the dead man off of the medicine cabinet. Not wasting any time, I open the cabinet's door and start looking for anything useful, stuff that can be used either as a painkiller or for treating wounds. I take the medicines I know to be safe and leave everything else alone. Ever since I lost my group I have been extra careful to keep up the balance between traveling lightly and having a well-stocked backpack, because there is no-one to patch me up if I don't have a first aid kit.

In the middle of looting I hear a familiar growl from the hallway. It's one of the beast-like infected. I ready my rifle and the flashlight strapped to it illuminates the open doorway. Soon a figure crawling on all fours appears in the doorway. I shoot and the spray of bullets scrapes the figure's shoulder and it leaps out of sight with a screech. I hear it move about in the hallway, growling in pain and rage. It comes back in the doorway and I shoot again but miss as it leaps out of sight again. The thing screeches in the hallway. I have to kill it before the noise attracts more infected to the scene. I go into the hallway and shoot as soon as I see the thing. Some bullets hit as the thing leaps towards me. It barely misses me and lands somewhat clumsily. I turn and shoot again and this time a bullet or two sink into its side but I run out of bullets. Fangs bared, the thing crouches, about to pounce again. I have no time to reload. Without even thinking I rush forward and smash it in the face with my rifle. The stunned creature staggers backwards on two feet, looking almost human for a second. But I see its bloody fangs glinting in the light of the flashlight and smash it in the face again. And yet again, and when I smash it the face the fourth time, it falls to the floor and stops moving. Thinking I had killed it I sigh in relief. As I begin to reload my rifle, I hear a quiet sound. I hold my breath and try to locate the sound source. The thing is still breathing. I finish reloading and take aim, when a crazy idea comes to my mind.

I lower my rifle and return to my backpack. I take out the handcuffs I got from a group of infected police officers. Then I take off the dead guy's socks and go back to the creature. I cuff the creature's hands, if they can be called that, behind its back. Another pair of handcuffs goes on its ankles and finally a third pair secures the two pairs together. I roll one sock into a ball and shove it in the creature's mouth and tie the other sock around the creature's head to keep it from spitting out the rolled up sock. Luckily the dead guy had big feet. Otherwise the sock would have been too short. I try figure out if the creature could get loose on its own. It had stronger muscles than a human would, but its muscle structure was mostly human. The way its limbs were secured behind its back should keep it from breaking loose, unless it was stronger than Godzilla.

Finally I pull the creature into the room and dead guy out of the room. I refuse to camp with someone who moons at me, even if they are dead. I barricade the door shut and wonder when my sanity had left me. Not that it really matters. In this world gone crazy, sanity is a luxury, not a necessity. I sit on the floor and cough from all the dust I've breathed in during the last few days and manage to kick up a white dust cloud. I move away from the dust cloud to breathe. I stare at the creature in silence. Could I possibly tame it?


End file.
